Memories Aplenty On The Line

Wisconsin Meets Purdue 4th Time

ALBUQUERQUE — There was no need to stay up half the night staring at videotape and combing the Internet to compile a scouting report.

There is not much left for Wisconsin and Purdue to discover about each other, three games and 122 fouls into their hand-to-hand competition this season. And that's just the ones that were called.

But when two of the three remaining Big Ten teams in the NCAA tournament meet Saturday for a spot in the Final Four, the survivor may be the team that has learned the most about itself.

Wisconsin (21-13) will play for its first spot in a national semifinal since the NCAA championship season of 1941, two years before coach Dick Bennett was born. Purdue (24-9) can reach the Final Four for the first time since 1980, the season before Gene Keady became Boilermakers coach.

The setting, University Arena, surrounds the court where Houston and Louisville once staged a high-wire Final Four dunkathon and inspired a note that was handed down press row: "Welcome to the 21st Century."

Seventeen years and a millennium celebration later, the West Regional championship game is certain to turn back the clocks. Wisconsin has held its last nine opponents to an average of 52.1 points, and limited Louisiana State to 48.

The common thread from Purdue's victory at West Lafayette and Wisconsin's victories at Madison and in the Big Ten tournament has been simple. Contact between the Badgers and Boilermakers--incidental and otherwise--has been incessant.

The 150th meeting in a series that began in 1906 has never known stakes like this.

"I've been a fan of college basketball forever, and the ultimate is the tournament," Bennett said. "The ultimate of the ultimate is the Final Four and a chance to win a national championship, which seems so far out of reach at times. You get relatively close to it and it gives you the shivers."

When Wisconsin's Mike Kelley and Purdue's Carson Cunningham put their heads together in quest of a loose ball during the quarterfinals of the conference tournament, each player had to leave the game to have a cut repaired.

When Cornell struggled with his emotions that night at the United Center, one more frustrating night dealing with Kelley and the Badgers taught him that his outlook had to change.

Cornell made eight of 33 shots (24.2 percent) and averaged 7.7 points against Wisconsin this season. In his four seasons, Cornell has averaged 9.4 points--3.4 beneath his career average--and made 31 percent of his shots. Keady attempted to spread the responsibility for Cornell's struggles against the Badgers.

"I think the big responsibility is for the screeners to get him open," Keady said.

But the coach removed Cornell earlier this month after the senior became angry with what he considered uneven officiating. Cornell was held to three points in 21 minutes.

"Coach sat me down for a long time," Cornell said. "I felt that's where I needed to be. I was reflecting: `Man, you're no good if you let your emotions get involved. You don't help your team at all.' So my thing is to just try to stay positive. Just take that slapping and grabbing that they're going to do, because I know they're going to do it."

The Badgers have taken a similar approach to dealing with Purdue's Brian Cardinal, the self-proclaimed most hated player in the league. Charlie Wills, a sophomore forward, will assume some of that responsibility.

"You can't fall victim to his aggressiveness, or if he's going to take a flop or throw those shot fakes and fall down," Bennett said. "You've got to be strong enough and smart enough to avoid that. And if it happens that he makes you look bad, you've got to have a short memory."

Bennett smiled. "Charlie does have a short memory," the coach said. "He hardly remembers anything."

That might be the best approach. Retain useful memories and forget everything else.

"When you play a team coached by this man," Bennett said of Keady, "you just tighten your belt buckle, pull up your socks and lace your shoes very tight. And know there will be no quarter given and none asked."